Vancouver And More…

I’m too tired to do a full post tonight, but I uploaded lots of pictures from today. In brief: I woke up in Anacortes, drove to Vancouver, walked across the most expensive toll bridge in the universe, saw some timber wolves, checked out downtown Vancouver and Chinatown and then took a long, awesome ferry to Sidney, BC so that I can cross to Friday Harbor, San Juan tomorrow. And now it’s time for sleep!

Click the big bridge to see today’s pictures.

And now, to finish that up! I woke up early(ish) in Anacortes and did some laundry, which was badly needed. I had had no time to get any done before I left for the trip and things were starting to get pretty bad. After all that excitement I headed to the port to try to catch a ferry to the San Juan Islands; destination Friday Harbor. On arrival it turned out the next ferry was not until 2:45pm and it was only around 11am. After a little though I decided I’d take the long way around, drive to Vancouver, check it out, then go to Victoria and eventually take the ferry to Friday Harbor from the west instead of the east.

Some of that actually happened.

I did make it to Vancouver, and it was gorgeous. On approach you see skyscrapers with a snow topped mountain backing. It’s really, really beautiful. When I crossed the border to Canada one of the first things I saw was a billboard for a walk across suspension bridge, and it looked really neat so I decided to check it out. I plugged in the address in my GPS (which has been the most awesome thing ever) and headed straight there. Along the way I saw a really tall mountain that I decided I wanted to see the top of before I left. File that for later.

The suspension bridge was ultra-touristy but still worth it. The bridge itself was really cool, and very bouncy and then the little town in the trees made me think that the designers of Kelethin in EverQuest and of the tree section of Far Cry had definitely been to this place. It was very neat. Shame I don’t know much Japanese, or I would have been able to communicate with every single person there. Very touristy.

So then it was off to find that mountain. I saw a sign that said “Grouse Mountain – The Peak of Vancouver” and that sounded pretty promising. I drove to the top and they had a cable car that would take you the rest of the way but it was $36 and I had just paid $26 to walk across a bridge, so I decided to skip it. I did get to see some real wolves for free though. They were behind a three wire electric fence, but I could have easily patted them on the snout if I were so inclined. I was not so inclined. Close up a wolf does not look anything like a dog. It looks like a killer.

Next up I had to decide what to do with the rest of my day. I had considered sleeping in Vancouver, but I didn’t really have any good reason to. Just in case a reason presented itself, I decided to check out a hostel downtown and see what happened. My GPS took me right to it and I recognized the front of the building from the picture I had seen earlier. Mostly recognized. There was some new art on the front door in the form of black spraypaint exclaiming “Die Punks Die”. I decided to hit the road.

So, the plan was to take a ferry to Sidney, B.C. (British Columbia), spend the night and then try to get to Friday Harbor in the morning. The ferry ride was awesome. It snaked through a bunch of little islands and once again, I started thinking the designer for the Siren Isles in EverQuest had once sailed the same way.

I slept in a great Super 8 with speedy Internet access which would come in to play several times throughout the next day… but that’s tomorrow’s (today’s) post!